To grant (someone) the permission or power necessary to do (something).
"The manager decided to authorize his assistant to sign contracts on behalf of the company."
In plain English: To authorize something means to give someone official permission to do it.
"My manager authorized me to take next Monday off for personal reasons."
Usage: Use "authorize" when you want to indicate that someone has officially given permission for an action, often in formal contexts like financial transactions or official documents.
The word authorize comes from the Latin auctor, meaning "author" or "creator," and entered English through Old French as auctorisier. It originally referred to giving official power or sanction, a sense that remains its primary definition today.